1990: Starting from Baojia Street

When the male protagonist and his father went back to his youth, when the father and son were walking on the beach together, a few tears flashed in Shang Wenya's eyes.

This two-hour film gradually leads the audience into the final philosophical discussion about time.

By this time, Shang Wenya was able to give his own evaluation, this is definitely a good movie.

If the score is 10, she would give the movie 10.

Of course, the reason why she was willing to give it ten points was because of Zhou Yan.

If it weren't for Zhou Yan, she would probably have deducted 0.5 points or one point.

The rating of "Time Traveler" is not as good as "The Chorus", but Shang Wenya believes that this is related to the subject matter.

"The Chorus" is about education, which has its own advantages.

Li Yuanyuan, who was sitting next to Shang Wenya, let out a long sigh. Nearly two hours of audio-visual enjoyment made her a little breathless.

Judging from the development of the main story line alone, the pace of this movie is relatively slow, and it doesn't seem to tell many stories in nearly two hours.

But in terms of audio-visual experience, the pace of this movie is not slow at all.

One very brilliant thing about this movie is the capture of the small details of daily life. These details play an important role in shaping the characters and increasing the realism and vividness of the film.

The supernatural element of time travel combined with this everyday narrative allows the audience to more actively participate in the film's narrative and explore the direction of the film.

The movie is full of life details that are worth paying attention to. Many of the character lines seem casual, but they are worthy of the audience's serious thinking and aftertaste.

If you like music, you will be even busier. Throughout the whole movie, Li Yuanyuan felt that she was being pushed by the waves formed by the movie soundtrack.

The waves are slow yet huge, making people immersed in them and unable to extricate themselves.

At the end of the movie, the song "How Long Will I Love You" sounded again, until the credits began, and then the song that was played when the hero and heroine first met sounded again.

At this time, I don’t know who started to applaud first, but everyone else followed suit.

The lights in the concert hall came on, and the main creative staff in the front row stood up and turned to thank the audience.

When the applause gradually died down, Xu Feng picked up the microphone, first said some words of thanks, and then asked everyone to help promote the campaign.

These are naturally said to those media people. Their publicity is very important.

Of course, if you want them to help you say something good, it’s not enough to just ask them twice; you need to arrange something.

After Xu Feng finished speaking, the scene began to disperse.

Jiao Huang walked over to Zhou Yan and said with a smile, "Director Zhou, the final presentation of the movie is better than I imagined."

Due to schedule reasons, Jiao Huang did not participate much in the post-production of the film, so he did not know how the film would turn out before today.

Sometimes, shooting a movie is one thing and editing it is another.

There are many cases where things feel good when shooting, but the final result is terrible.

Now that he has finished watching the movie, Jiao Huang feels relieved.

The role of the father he plays is very important in the movie. Apart from the male and female protagonists, he can be said to be the most important character.

However, during the filming, Jiao Huang felt that he did not have many scenes, and he was quite relaxed at the end of the scene.

This should be the easiest drama Jiao Huang has ever acted in. Before, even if he played an insignificant supporting role, it was more tiring than this.

In this drama, most of the time he just needs to find a place to sit, read a book and relax. The most physically demanding thing is probably playing table tennis with the male lead.

Zhou Yan said with a smile, "Teacher Jiao, the success of the movie is thanks to your efforts. You played the role of the father very well. I told Sister Feng a few days ago that asking you to play the father was one of the best decisions we made this year."

Jiao Huang waved his hand and said, "Director Zhou, please stop complimenting me. When we were filming this movie, I basically did nothing but listened to your instructions. I never thought that filming a movie would be so easy."

"It's because you acted well and there were few NGs, so it was easy."

"I'm in another crew..."

At this time, Han Sanping came over and said with a smile, "What are you two talking about? Why don't you go to the hotel quickly? It's getting late."

After the premiere ceremony, there was a party, which was actually a wrap party. Zhou Yan did not hold a wrap party when the filming was completed before, but since most people were there this time, he held one.

After hearing what Han Sanping said, Jiao Huang and Zhou Yan stopped talking and walked outside together, preparing to go to the hotel.

……

After Li Yuanyuan and Shang Wenya walked out of the concert hall, Shang Wenya asked Li Yuanyuan, "Sister Yuanyuan, are you going back to school now?"

"No, I'm going to the cinema."

"Movie theater?" Shang Wenya looked puzzled. "Why are you going to the cinema at this time?"

"I'm going to watch "Time Traveler" again. Many of the songs in it appeared too briefly, so I couldn't really hear their flavor. I feel a little itchy inside, and I feel like I won't be able to sleep if I go back now."

Hearing what Li Yuanyuan said, Shang Wenya blinked a few times. Sister Yuanyuan really loves music. She even went to the cinema to watch the movie again just for the songs in the movie.

The movie is two hours long, and they have been sitting in the concert hall for more than two hours.

Shang Wenya thought for a moment and said, "How about I go with you? I don't have anything to do tomorrow anyway."

Li Yuanyuan nodded and said, "Okay, let's go. I'm afraid it's too late to buy a ticket."

……

Li Yuanyuan and her friends walked very quickly and just caught up with the first wave of audience coming out of the theater. The second show was about to start in a while.

However, there were no tickets for the subsequent shows.

Seeing Li Yuanyuan and Shang Wenya panting, the ticket seller smiled and said, "Not to mention tonight's show, even tomorrow and the day after tomorrow's show, you can't buy tickets now. If you want to watch it now, you can only buy tickets for Monday, and you have to go during the day. The evening tickets have been sold out early in the morning."

"Are tickets so hard to buy?" Shang Wenya asked in surprise.

"You don't even look at what movie it is, who's acting in it, and who's directing it."

The ticket seller rolled his eyes and ran away to eat some melon seeds.

She was in a bad mood because if her boss hadn't insisted that someone be on duty, she could have gone off work earlier today. There would be no tickets to sell later anyway.

Li Yuanyuan sighed slightly. She had thought that the evening show would be later and there might not be so many people watching, but she didn't expect that she couldn't buy tickets at all.

Seeing that Li Yuanyuan was a little disappointed, Shang Wenya said, "How about we go to other cinemas? Maybe we can still buy tickets."

Li Yuanyuan shook her head and said, "Forget it. We are running out of time. Besides, the situation in other cinemas should be similar. The best selling movie tickets are definitely not from just one cinema."

"I feel that the popularity of "Time Traveler" is higher than that of "The Chorus" before," said Shang Wenya.

"Because Mr. Zhou is more famous now, and the leading actress is Joey Wong, and Mr. Zhou plays the leading actor himself. In addition, the pre-promotion of this movie is also very good. I often saw related news some time ago. When "The Chorus" was released before, there was not so much news."

Shang Wenya nodded and said, "Well, I saw Wang Zuxian donated 20 pianos to the Central Conservatory of Music this morning. This is probably part of the publicity." Li Yuanyuan disagreed, "Donating pianos is not the right thing. I heard that more than 200,000 yuan was donated. If this money was used in other publicity channels, the effect would be better. If it was just donating pianos, the cost-effectiveness is not very high. I feel that Wang Zuxian donated it purely for Teacher Zhou's sake."

"Whether it was intentional or not to promote the movie, the effect is there anyway."

"That's right. Actually, there's no need to promote anything else. Just promoting Mr. Zhou and Joey Wong's relationship is enough. People just like to watch that."

"Yes, many of the juniors and seniors in the fan club like them being together. They will be very happy after the new movie comes out."

"Actually, I think Kudo Shizuka is pretty good. She's young and energetic."

"Isn't Kudo Shizuka a little short?"

"Being shorter is cuter."

……

The two of them walked out of the theater while gossiping about Zhou Yan's scandal.

On the way, they heard many viewers discussing "Time Traveler". Most of them said the movie was good, but some viewers had different opinions.

"I don't know what Zhou Yan was thinking. Why did he play so many English songs? Isn't he a bit too Westernized?"

“Is he trying to curry favor with Hollywood?”

"It always feels awkward to see so many English songs in Chinese movies."

"And don't you think this movie is out of touch with the masses? Who among ordinary people lives in such a big house, especially by the sea?"

"Well, it feels far inferior to The Chorus."

"This is just an ordinary love movie. Of course, it can't be compared with The Chorus. I feel like Zhou Yan has run out of ideas."

"Has Wang Zuxian changed? Why does she look not as pretty as before?"

"It was only good during the wedding, not at other times. Isn't it said that Zhou Yan is very good at taking pictures of beautiful women? Why didn't it work this time?"

"I heard that this movie was shot in just one month. There must be no sincerity in it. It was made just to make money."

"Yes, and the movie is two hours long, and the ticket price is fifty cents more expensive than a normal movie."

"Disappointed, so disappointed."

Hearing the discussion of the audience, Shang Wenya frowned and looked like he wanted to go up and argue.

Li Yuanyuan, however, remained calm. She saw things more clearly than Shang Wenya. She knew that no matter what movie it was, it would be criticized.

There is nothing in this world that can be liked by everyone, let alone movies.

Don’t think that those people just brought up “The Chorus” when they were criticizing “A Time Traveler”. In fact, “The Chorus” also encountered a lot of doubts and criticisms when it was released.

……

After the release of "Time Traveler", the box office performance was very good. Although the national box office data cannot be counted for the time being, the scene of hard-to-get tickets in cinemas across the country is obvious to all.

With such a grand scene, the box office will definitely not be bad.

For a time, news about the movie's box office success appeared in major media.

[Surprise! Zhou Yan's new movie is a big hit in cinemas, tickets are hard to come by! ]

["Time Traveler" may become the hope of "resisting the United States"! ]

[Institutions predict that the box office of "Time Traveler" in mainland China may exceed 40 million! ]

[The Mainland Box Office of "Time Traveler" is expected to exceed 50 million! ]

[…Expected to exceed 60 million! ]

These news reports contain all kinds of information, true and false, which makes it difficult to understand.

The most exaggerated thing is that "Time Traveler" has the hope of exceeding 8000 million yuan at the box office. The reason for this number is that the box office of this year's best-selling movie "Police Stories 4: Simple Tasks" was 8000 million yuan.

If the box office of "Time Traveler" exceeds 80 million yuan, it means that it can take the first place in the mainland box office this year.

……

"Time Traveler" has such a hot box office, so it should have received good reviews as well, but in fact, the social evaluation of this movie is not very high.

The negative comments mainly focus on the following points.

First, all the interludes used in the movie are English songs, which seems to be an attempt to please Europe and the United States.

Second, the film lacks logic and the science fiction elements backfire.

Third, the film has no consistent main line, it is like a lyrical essay.

Fourth, the theme of the movie is not profound enough and is not as good as "The Chorus".

Many "film critics" expressed disappointment with Zhou Yan's new film. They believed that this was not something that should be shot by a director who won the Special Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival.

They believe that Zhou Yan should continue to pay attention to social issues instead of focusing on love.

In addition to "film critics", people from the literary criticism circle also spoke out this time.

Just a few days after the movie was released, young critic Zhang Yiwu published an article titled "Spiritual Compromise" in the "At Your Service" newspaper.

In the article, Zhang Yiwu criticized Zhou Yan for copying European and American film models, and the new films he shot were completely compromises to the West, which was a manifestation of his bending his back.

He also criticized Zhou Yan's music for being heavily Westernized, a complete imitation of Western music without any Chinese connotations. He said that it would be fine if no one watched the movie, but if too many people watched it it would be a disaster and would have a bad impact on the majority of simple audiences.

Zhou Yan did not see the article immediately. It was Yu Hua who told him about it over the phone.

After the call was connected, the first thing Yu Hua said was: "You were scolded too."

Zhou Yan was stunned by this. What did he mean by he was also scolded? Who scolded him? Besides him, who else was scolded?
After listening to Yu Hua's explanation, Zhou Yan realized that it was Zhang Yiwu, who had scolded Han Shaogong, who also scolded him. He even wrote a special article with a title that looked like a sister article to the one scolding Han Shaogong, "Spiritual Lack".

Zhou Yan was often scolded, but he didn't care much. He was just a little curious, "Why would Zhang Yiwu, a literary critic, scold me?"

Yu Hua smiled and said, "Aren't you from the literary world?"

"This... We didn't have any grudges against each other before. He came to criticize my movie. Isn't that a bit over the line?"

"You don't know Zhang Yiwu. He knows everything."

Knows everything... Zhou Yan probably understood what Yu Hua meant. Zhang Yiwu was probably a talkative person. No matter whether it was something related to his major or not, he would always make a few comments.

This is also a common problem among many so-called critics, who always like to comment on matters outside of their expertise and often make a fool of themselves.

Of course, some critics may not be able to offer any insightful opinions within their field. (End of this chapter)